they were of small
importance compared with the games themselves. At times the bets were
enormous. Soule tells us that as high as twenty thousand dollars were
risked on the turn of one card. The ordinary stake, however, was not so
large, from fifty cents to five dollars being about the usual amount.
Even at this the gamblers were well able to pay the high rents. Quick
action was the word. The tables were always crowded and bystanders many
deep waited to lay their stakes. Within a year or so the gambling
resorts assumed rather the nature of club-rooms, frequented by every
class, many of whom had no intention of gambling. Men met to talk, read
the newspapers, write letters, or perhaps take a turn at the tables. But
in 1849 the fever of speculation held every man in its grip.

Again it must be noted how wide an epoch can be spanned by a month or
two. The year 1849 was but three hundred and sixty-five days long, and
yet in that space the community of San Francisco passed through several
distinct phases. It grew visibly like the stalk of a century plant.

Of public improvements there were almost none. The few that were
undertaken sprang from absolute necessity. The town got through the
summer season fairly well, but, as the winter that year proved to be an
unusually rainy time, it soon became evident that something must be
done. The streets became bottomless pits of mud. It is stated, as plain
and sober fact, that in some of the main thoroughfares teams of mules
and horses sank actually out of sight and were suffocated. Foot travel
was almost impossible unless across some sort of causeway. Lumber was so
expensive that it was impossible to use it for the purpose. Fabulous
quantities of goods sent in by speculators loaded the market and would
sell so low that it was actually cheaper to use bales of them than to
use planks. Thus one muddy stretch was paved with bags of Chilean flour,
another with tierces of tobacco, while over still another the wayfarers
proceeded on the tops of cook stoves. These sank gradually in the soft
soil until the tops were almost level with the mud. Of course one of the
first acts of the merry jester was to shy the stove lids off into space.
The footing especially after dark can be imagined. Crossing a street on
these things was a perilous traverse watched with great interest by
spectators on either side. Often the hardy adventurer, after teetering
for some time, would with a descriptive oath sink to